1/26/07, 5:21 pm EST

Assignment Three Finalist: Jason Coon on The Wynn Brothers Band (Maitland, Florida)

Think you can do better? Prove it, by entering our contest. Win prizes and get your work published. We’ll announce week four’s assignment Monday, 12:00 p.m. EST.

Note: This is not an official Rolling Stone article. What follows is a submission to the “I’m From Rolling Stone” writing competition.

THE WYNN BROTHERS BAND - 1/13/07

by Jason Coon
Age: 33

I smelled puke in the parking lot as I exited the car. I glimpsed a groping couple in-between a coupla pick-ups. It was nice out for January. Not cold, not hot, not humid, just like baby bear’s porridge. Just right. The marquee’s oddly bright light was out of place amongst the old-school, oddly-curved strip mall.

The Copper Rocket. Beer lives here. And smoke, lots of smoke. And music: guitars picking reverberations and swishes outta the air, drums belching out a studded heartbeat, lyrics repeated for the hundredth time since their origin in the back of a drunken mind. The exterior of the bar belies its nestled, wooden, pub innards.

The place is filled, as the opening band, country boys to the last, explode into a song. I have no idea who they are. Their twang and strum and yelled hick rebellions get my head going, nodding slight approval. They last two more songs, ten more minutes of trying to be like the Cash they want to remember, the Jennings they’ve never seen. It doesn’t suck.

A quick pack-out/pack-in and the buzzed thrall is ready to go. The song out of the gate is, as always, “The Weight.” Yes, I take the load off and put it right on them. They can handle it. The dirty south filtered through the American Venn diagram of country, western, and folk. The band flings around heavy, rhythmic Allmanesque Skynyrd riffs as if it were easy, yet occasionally grates with Rusted Root vocals. They reach a little further and find something more honest. A new song. A little Nawlin’s funk mixed with Grease-y Newton-John backup vocals that lick my lips as the lead guitar sings gin-flavored exuberances. They had me at “Hey there.”